#and any kind of adaptations that will bring to screen honestly | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ariel-seagull-wings · 3 months ago

Text

@thealmightyemprex

"Fox TV and Marvel Comics decided. By summer of 1993, the show had been a runaway No. 1 hit for six months and we had completed writing the second season of scripts, bringing the total stories to 26. At that point, Fox committed to three more seasons (39 more episodes), and I, executive Sidney Iwanter, producer Scott Thomas, and director Larry Houston visited Marvel’s New York offices to brainstorm and discuss various characters and bits of storyline we would all like to see in the next 39 half-hours.

“Phoenix” and “Dark Phoenix” were at the top of Marvel’s list.

The only direct adaptation we had made so far was “Days of Future Past,” which we had suggested, and it and the two Phoenixes were the only direct adaptations we ever committed to. Every other story used bits and pieces from the books, but these were the “big three.”

Primarily we focused on Jean Grey (who was going through the Phoenix transformation) and on those people who cared most about her. Secondarily, we focused on Xavier, whose connection to Lilandra brought the worlds beyond Earth into our stories for the first time.

When we looked at the many subplots in the books, we trimmed them away or bolstered them, depending on how they helped support these two central through-lines.

We were excited to do it because we had felt that we had underused her in the first two seasons and this gave us a chance to give her more screen time. Second, by now we had established that she was a kind of emotional center for the team��someone who could talk honestly with any of the others, who understood them–so we knew she would sustain a good story focus for our team of X-Men.

As a “children’s show for Saturday morning TV,” we were always aware of the tight limits we had on sex and violence–limits far tighter than the comics had.

Luckily, since we were focused on Jean/Phoenix and Xavier and Lilandra, adjusting secondary characters wasn’t a big worry for us. Also, we believe we got the intensity of Jean’s Black-Queen sensuality across in her dialogue and in Catherine Disher’s performance. Jean-as-Phoenix is so much bigger, more dramatic, in animation than Jean-as-Black-Queen that we never felt the loss.

First, we knew from the beginning we couldn’t have Dark Phoenix destroy an inhabited planet, so we worked with that disappointing limitation from day one. We hope we got across how deadly she could be. Second, we very much believe that killing Jean off would have been the proper heroic sacrifice for the story.

We didn’t for two reasons. First, we needed her for the remaining 20 stories–a problem in all comics and serialized TV.

And second, we’d had a convincing seeming-death in “Phoenix,” which was then revealed to not be Jean’s end after all. We didn’t want to repeat that.

We thought up the shared sacrifice of the rest of the team (10% of their lives–a handy cheat) as a way around it.

I wish I knew (and that they had asked us to help). Animated TV comics-adaptations and live-action feature comics-adaptations are similar but not the same.

The great TV critic Brian Lowry thinks animation suits super-hero-comics adaptations better than live action–something about suspension of disbelief. Mutants with super-powers are hard enough–then in these cases you add space aliens. You can get lost in the spectacle.

I believe that the recent Spider-Man animated feature was better than any of the live-action movies, most of which I enjoyed a great deal. When in doubt, keep the story simple and trust in the characters to propel the story (the movie Logan is a good example).

She asserted herself. As writer Mark Edens and I laid out the first, then the second season of stories, we kept coming back to needing to use her in scenes, often to reveal depths of other characters.

She was an emotional center, trusted, a glue that helped keep the disparate team together. Luckily, she was a true legacy character, so no one ever felt we were being intrusive by featuring her."

(Eric Lewald)

#eric lewald #x men tas #x men 92 #x men the animated series #jean grey #phoenix #dark phoenix

3 notes · View notes

memorydragon · 7 months ago

Text

Since I've now played through the remake eight times now (this is normal) I felt like I should say a few words on Trials of Mana, or Seiken Densetsu 3/Secret of Mana 2 as we called it back in the day.

First of all, let me say SD3 is one of my top two games of all time (the other being Tales of Phantasia). I have played this game an unholy number of times in my youth. I've had the Trials of Mana remake for a while now, tbh, but have held off on playing it because I didn't want Remake Disappointment. But coming off of three games in a row that ended on a downer (I'm looking at you, Kiseki) and a really rough semester, I finally decided to give it a go.

On the whole, I have to agree with the review that I read before diving in. Which is to say, it's a very faithful adaptation. It has everything that made the original fun and enjoyable. I do kinda wish they'd actually put a bit more effort into additional content (because there is so much they could have done and it would have been amazing), but overall very satisfying to play through.

I will say I am delighted that my fave was turned into a bisexual icon. He and Angela are both very bisexually color coded and my headcanon is that they are bi besties who wingman for each other and chat under the sacred bi tree about mutual crushes. ("He's hot." "He's not the smartest around." "Yeah, but you have to admit those muscles." "You're bringing me around to himbos." vs "Do you ever just look at Riese and think damn." "All the damned time. She could have her wicked way with me any day." "She's Riese, she's too kind for wicked." "I know. T_T" ) Like, if I could find the way to transfer photos from the ps4 without massive amounts of headache and digging, there's one screen cap for when I got an achievement of them in their dark classes still matching and it was like, yes, good.

Hawkeye is still my absolute fave, especially since they animated him with dancer warmups and very bisexually. He has soulful sad eyes. He hits fast. His beaming smile at friends is sweet. He's a treasure hunting thief. He was most definitely sleeping with Eagle He's out for revenge but ends up pitying Belladonna.

And honestly, let me just say that Fairy just kind of going 'oh, well. I don't have much choice, the MC is the only character around' as the way of picking the chosen of Mana still tickles me. Like, not even giving them a choice about things, just there's only one person here and now you're the chosen one.

I do like the voices, both english and japanese. Charlotte is still.... unfortunately translated, but the fact that their actor pool is all from New England is hysterical. Like, the Wiki says Angela has a valley girl accent and I'm over here like, um... I can see how you think that, but she's very definitely still a New Englander. No one says 'on' like that in California, I should know. That's where they put me in speech class.

Overall the game is easier, not just because they give all sorts of tips that I would have loved to know the first time I played. (The first time I played was... well. This is a game that very much needed the manual it no doubt came with, but I was emulating an english translation that didn't come with the manual. And I still persisted in playing.) The two main differences is that now the game lets you powerlevel your way through things and full screen class skills can be avoided. The former was Weird, because I played the original an unholy number of times and had every level and seed acquiring down to an art, and suddenly I'm several levels above where I should be, but it's keeping the skill points for later. That took a lot of adjusting to, but I managed, and now am usually past 38 even before I get to the first mana stone. XD Kinda makes me miss using the second class changes, but oh well. Full screen skills being avoidable is part of a 3d environment, which is honestly nice. It does make beastmen/swordsman and other monsters much, much easier though. It's no longer Kill Immediately and aggressively before they use their tech and shred your party.

The trap door monster in Laurant is much more of a bitch though. Fuck that thing, 3d made it so much worse.

The post game content is a bit monotonous, but not terrible. What I wish they'd done more with is the personal quests and at least a bit more interaction between certain party arrangements. Mainly along the shared quest lines. The all girl/all boy party was a fun touch, but I'd I wish they'd even done a bit more with that. Just more interaction with the characters, since that's half the charm of the game was who is and who isn't in your party. Writing didn't seem to be the remake crew's strong point though. Honestly, being faithful to the original is probably way more than enough. It's just wishful that we could have gotten a little bit more than just a little bit extra.

The new techs and new game plus does make replaying through faster, which is sometimes great when you just want to play with combinations. They also let you reset your class with specific items, which is a fantastic addition. I don't use it much, but being reminded why Riese's light/light class had the worst summon, it was nice to be able to switch her around. I also like that you can change the outfits regardless of class, which is great when Angela's dark/dark class was honestly clashing terribly on top of being a bikini armor. Now when I want to use Ancient, I just switch to her more reasonable outfits.

Kevin and Duran getting boob armor for their dark ultimate class was amazing though. Hawkeye not having revealing outfits also gives way to lots of gender headcanons. I also now have a lot of polycule headcanons, because they absolutely are. Except Charlotte. She can cuddle, but she needs to grow mentally 50 years. Then she can be the hot half elf who hits up her silver foxes/cougars, but she does not act her age in the slightest and looks about ten so she's waiting until she does some growing.

Being able to fight the black rabite on all paths rather than only available for Duran/Angela main is great too. I mean, it's still traumatic in a deeply unhinged way, but again, the game is easier in the remake. That includes superboss. Though I did not appreciate being asked twice each time I go to fight it if I'm sure I want to fight it. Like, fuck you game. I've already got the psychological trauma of the original.

(It does make me miss my irc heyday, when I had my bot named BlackRabite and would occasionally switch over just to make it bounce.)

Rabites are still the Most Monster of all time. I love them. Even when they're murdering me or I'm murdering them. You can't actually kill the black rabite. It just bounces away when it's done messing with you.

Anyway, I've played through most of the classes now, though I think I'm still missing one of each for Riese/Duran/Charlotte. I actually did a no healer run this time, which was interesting. Way easier in this version, especially with certain shared techs, but it's nice to not have to plan a party on needing a healer. I'd probably have all the classes by now if I didn't like, use Hawkeye for everything, but hey. He's a fave. I did a Hawkeye-less run, of course, but still. He's going to be in my party the majority of the time, because I love my bisexual thief. (They made his ultimate class change item the Loyal sphere, which also hits mine and Riese's Loyality kink, just as she hits his kindness kink and yeah, I've got a lot of headcanons about Riese accepting her bisexual thief boyfriend and outside game canon incest is just going to happen. Sorry, square, you made that final scene of Eagle saying the memories they had together were his most precious treasure after you've made a prequel game I didn't play that made Hawkeye Flamekhan's grandson. I found this out through wikipedia (and will absolutely be checking out how to emulate gba now, because Hawkeye's mom sounds Badass) and only after you made me ship it, so now it's just Flamekhan who gets ulcers when he finds out with Jessica as a supportive sister-in-law because only he knows he disowned his badass daughter. He only has himself to blame, while Ignorance is gonna stay blissful. And while Jessica and Hawkeye are distancing themselves from the old man because they think he's being homophobic, Jessica takes over Nevarl. As she should. Queen of Thieves we all deserve.

(Falcon in the thereafter may have had a few ulcers herself, but then decided, fuck it. Her father was the one who said he didn't have a daughter first, so she doesn't have a father. She's got a cute son-in-law now instead of step brother and will have a cute amazon princess daughter-in-law soon, so her son is obviously doing well.)

I did warn you I have thought A Lot about this. XD

The one thing I kinda wish didn't carry over is the total play time, because I do really not need to know how many hours I spend on this game. But well, no one else needs to know. XD I also kind of wish the final class was more of a combination like it promised than just a few extra stats, but hey.

Anyway, in terms of a remake, I do highly recommend it. I enjoyed it greatly, and it's very New England english cast, which most people may or may not necessarily realize that all of them are from there, but those were the vowels of my people. Also, I'm more forgiving of Charlotte's manner of speaking now, because she's hilariously also strongly from New England.

Listen, when you're put in speech classes and told your accent is terrible as a child, it's only natural to turn to Spite. That's just how it is. XD

On a final note, they animated the merchants in the most unhinged manner possible, and I adore it. It's absolute madness. They went there and it's glorious.

#This is Mem's life #Gaming stuffs #Trials of Mana #seiken densetsu 3 #I really do love this game so much #anyway now to decide who will be my next main #I'm thinking Kevin without Charlotte since I haven't done that yet

4 notes · View notes

stilldancewithyou · 1 year ago

Note

This was posted earlier today. I have the updated article on my tumblr page. I think I’m ok with it if it happens. I think it heightens the emotions between Belly and Conrad. 🤔Thoughts?

Thank you so much (and shout out to the anons who sent me links. I'm gonna respond to all of y'all collectively with this one).

Honestly, at first my jaw was on the floor and I was just sitting there silently in shock. And I was kinda mad and upset. I just feel like they did this same exact thing with TATBILB and I just don't understand why she would spend so much time writing the characters a certain way and building such a beautiful little world with such respectful men and then changing such a big part of a characters beliefs and the way they were written. I know people are saying "JH is making it more sex positive and bringing the story into 2023" but tbh I don't think having a boundary and wanting to wait for the right moment (bc Belly DOES want to have sex (with both brothers at different points I'd argue) and she thinks about it in the books. she just wanted it to be special and the right moment). I don't think there's anything wrong with showing that and showing boys who respect the boundary and don't push it or force it. I think that is the most healthy thing you could show. Even though Jere has his flaws and gets annoyed about Belly not having sex with him, he doesn't really push her on it, he just respects the boundary and is silently mad about it. In hs my best friend had a boyfriend who was SUPER pushy, she was honest with him and kept telling him "no, i'm not ready yet" and he just kept pushing her about it, and eventually they broke up and she realized how awful that behavior (among other red flag behavior from him) was. I just feel like the message being sent to young girls today is not a good one and I was actually kind of excited to see a show that would portray sex in a different light. I clowned myself because I thought since JH is the showrunner, she'd keep the important things from the books. But I guess this is a battle we are losing lol. That Christmas scene was so so good in the book, and the way Conrad is with Belly, how he recognizes the importance and wants it to be special for her...I was really looking forward to that.

After much consideration, I think I'm actually okay with it, as long as it's Conrad. And I have a feeling it is going to be Conrad, in Cousins in December. That's kind of the only way it would make sense is if it happens there. Also the fact that they bring up the fact that she loses her virginity immediately following "Tung...wanted to ensure that key moments from the second book...carried the same weight and resonance when adapted for the screen". The first thing that popped into my head after I read that was the Christmas in Cousins scene, because I felt like that whole thing resonated heavily in the book and it was really important. Also if I'm right and it is Conrad in Cousins, it actually adds more flames to the fire and more angst to the 3rd book storyline, because if she doesn't sleep with Jere but he finds out somehow that she did sleep with Conrad, and then finds out she ended up alone with him in Cousins again and didn't tell him? Oh that will be GOLD. Jere sleeping with the sorority sister could still carry the same amount weight. Just because the audience knows she lost her virginity to Conrad doesn't mean any of the other characters are going to know. And Conrad strikes me as a guy who wouldn't kiss and tell (and especially his own jealous little brother and Belly's older brother lol). I think they could 100% pull off the rest of the plot and still have her give herself fully to Conrad. But I can see the secret coming out to Jeremiah in the heat of an argument and all hell breaking loose. I think it'll be fine. It has to be lol

also who's idea was it to drop this spoiler-ish bomb on us two days before the start of the season?? I just wanna talk

#tsitp #the summer i turned pretty #tsitp season 2 #conrad fisher #belly x conrad #belly conklin

24 notes · View notes

therapeutic-dose · 5 months ago

Note

60, 70, 80, 90 for the writers asks! And wild card for 100: as a fellow KimChayCau writer, what drew you into writing about that pair specifically over something like KinnPorscheBig, etc? :3

60. where is the most dangerous place you've written fic?

Ahaha, honestly? Probably in my teens on my family's desktop computer. It was in a Microsoft Word document, I think? Just some really bad way-too-young-to-be-writing-this fanfic. It was the early 2000's and the desktop was centered in a the livingroom where you could walk by and see the screen at any time. Any time at all! And family had no clue, somehow, but maybe that's because it was like 2001 and they weren't worried about anything but me being in weird chat rooms lol

70. are you very critical of your own writing?

Yes, horribly so. I'm constantly editing as I write (though I've been much better about it since I started sprinting), and then edit a great deal before publishing. I go back and forth between thinking my writing is try-hard and purple and stupid and thinking that it's actually pretty good, but I think my main worry is that I'm a decent writer, but not a good storyteller, if that makes sense? The actual writing itself isn't bad, but I lose faith in my ability to tell an overarching story, and that leads me to a lot of edits as well.

80. do you try to put themes, motifs, messages, morals, etc into your writing? if so, how do you go about it?

Yes, absolutely. I almost beat them to death in my stories lol. I'm pretty obvious about them, and they're usually adapted into how the characters think. For example, in Harmony's Overture (and the whole of In Three Movements) music is a major part of how the three of them think and interact because it's so intrinsic to them. Music lends to the theme acceptance and stepping fearfully out of isolation, because music itself is so profound in what it offers us - not only catharsis and comfort, but the community it brings. It worked well for the theme of found family, in this case their individual notes becoming chords, played together not to change them, but to make them exist as something more together. Wounds and sickness also runs through the entire series as a commentary on not only how we perceive ourselves, but how we have to open ourselves to healing hands if we want to feel and be better - and that sometimes the illness is incurable, but you're allowed to breathe and be loved anyway. And I get heavy-handed with religious imagery with VegasPete, for obvious reasons lol. I'm digressing lol, moving on.

90. do you notice your own voice in your writing style?

In dialogue, sometimes, especially when it's banter or chit-chat. As far as prose/internal monologue I bleed so much of my actual self and the emotions around my experiences into my writing that it's hard not to see some of that reflected back at me, though I think I'm pretty good at becoming the character when I write them. (I think that's what this as asking? Lol)

100.

So to be honest, I'd read a bunch of MacauChay and enjoyed it, but was really wanting to explore Kim, and KimChay didn't quite have me by the collar enough to explore them. I also wanted to explore Macau for a lot of different reasons, so I landed on writing KimMacau. But I actually felt kind of sad leaving Chay in the dust, so I wasn't sure exactly what to do there. KimMacau truly began because I got eaten alive by this idea I had in a discord server that 6-year-age-gap Kim and Macau had been besties when they were younger, until Kim got VERY weird about it and yeeted himself out of Macau's life (breaking his sad little wet cat cousin's heart). I wanted to write a really twisted Kim, but I didn't want to write about him hurting people he loves by being toxic in the traditional(?) way - and that in combination with me feeling bad about Chay being left in the dust had me making a way for him to be very much a part of the story. After the end of part 1, part 2 erupted out of me because I just wanted to see what could happen between that version of Kim, this lonely and depressed version of Macau, and this twisted up, damaged, conflicted version of Chay. As for other throuples, so to speak, I think I just never quite vibed? I'd been so obsessed with VegasPete and couldn't really find anyone I wanted to put them with... And then somehow, when that original KimMacau story nagged at me forever, I decided this would be THE route haha.

Thank you friend, these were so fun!

#wildelydawn #ask game

3 notes · View notes

cozza-frenzy · 5 months ago

Note

how did you get your insys form?

I'm assuming this is directed at me (Terry, the host) and HOO BOY that is a story. Our therapist - who knows about our system - once half-jokingly called me "the captain of the ship of Theseus" for a good reason. So... when we first started, I didn't look like I do now. Post-discovery, when I got involuntarily yanked out of front for the first time and realized I wasn't in the body, I was a 4 foot tall grey humanoid. Our still-current PFP on tumblr? That's basically what I looked like. The only notable thing about me was the shadow over my eyes was permanently there, even when I took my hat off.

Then we paid a visit to our family in the UK - and being more aware of things, more able to process trauma and so on? Things began to change for me really quickly. Martin was the first to notice in-system, telling me to take my hat off and pointing out I now had four eyes instead of two. This was swiftly followed by two extra arms, digitigrade legs, a tail (for balance) and other minor changes.

Some more time passed, I mourned the loss of what I used to look like, and realized I had to keep moving on. Then Rocky - one of our smallest fragments, with a very limited purpose - spontaneously fused with me. That was... upsetting, at least at first. In one fell swoop I lost one set of arms entirely, and suddenly had a completely different face. Some of the other alters didn't recognize me when they walked into front.

But I adapted again; I took my time to process things, took my time to grieve. Accepting these changes can be really difficult; feeling dysphoric and having an identity crisis when you have The Identity Disorder can be especially distressing. But after fusing with Highwind (another fragment), going through a transitional form where I looked like the above but with horns and awkward arm-wings, my next evolution looked like this:

Celeste - another alter in our system, now fused, who was the same -in-sys species as me - told me that turning starry like this is a mark of maturity. Apparently all Beyonders start off grey and kind of generic-looking, but we're supposed to adapt constantly to our environment and our experiences, so we all end up looking very different. We gain our stars when we've reached a form we're comfortable enough in, that any further changes to our appearance are minor. ...And if anyone wants to use that against us, I didn't make that up intentionally. Our subconscious just, hands us lore sometimes - shit that pieced together from our knowledge, experiences, and imagination to try and make things make sense. We just tend to roll with it, because if we go into denial it starts to push back even harder, and that makes us unstable. It's like a wild animal you can tame - we can make our subconscious "do tricks" through manipulation, but sometimes we have to let it do what it wants. But that brings us to today!

As of recently I've fused with Caddy and Hyi, and better integrated Highwind's parts. And like Celeste predicted, my form has remained largely the same, but it has made me somewhat biomechanical. My eyes are projections on a screen, and there are parts of me that have something like armor plates, but everything has an organic or semi-organic quality. What it comes down to is the same reason I'm the host - I'm meant to be "the adaptable one", strategizing and thinking on my feet to cope with rapidly-changing situations. I'm always evolving, and a lot of the others in the system have changed over time too, but every change is all part of moving forward. And I'm glad I look like I do now - honestly, I think I'm really cool. - Terry

#Shit Terry Says #The Magbox Idiot Box #Adventures in OSDD

3 notes · View notes

phoebebuggers · 2 years ago

Text

the more i think about it, this season was honestly disappointing for me. i enjoyed watching it, and there definitely was some stuff that i did like, but overall as a fan of the books i feel kind of betrayed. i'm okay with canon non-compliance when you stay true to the characters and the feeling of the original story, but some of the things this adaptation did really rubbed me the wrong way. it felt like they were doing the absolute most for the crows to have as much screen time as possible because they know they're the fan favorites, but in turn messed with their individual arcs and just the way they were characterized a lot. i'd almost rather have had them be in the show less and kept an air of mystery (especially within the context of a possible six of crows spinoff adaptation.) there was absolutely no need to use important quotes and scenes from soc/ck this early, and as a book fan it felt glaringly out of place.

inej's character was just botched overall, not in characterization (amita did a great job) but in the acknowledgment of her trauma and her past. having nina remove her menagerie tattoo pissed me off so much, because having it be scarred and unclean is so symbolic of her trauma in the books. i also felt like they just ignored the fact that she has trauma overall, and it was never hinted at, in the scenes with kaz or ever. this is part of why her leaving ketterdam to hunt slavers holds so much weight in the books (especially with the epiphany scene she has climbing the incinerator shaft in soc) but in this scenario it felt very weakened. and don't give me any of that "saving it for later" bullshit, her trauma is not a plot point to bring up in a future season. also tante heleen dying so early and so unceremoniously didn't sit right with me, considering she's sort of meant to mirror pekka rollins for inej in a way, and the strive for revenge is so important to both of them. like FUCKKKK HER but it felt a little soon

kaz on the other hand i actually thought was fairly well done. freddy carter gave the performance of a fucking lifetime go king go (tbh all of the acting in this show was phenomenal, sucks that the writing was so shitty!! anyways.) the acknowledgment of his trauma and his haehephobia was continuous and shown really well in a lot of scenes. i saw someone say it felt like it was focused more on his survivors guilt (which is the lesser part in the books) than his haehephobia, which i wouldn't disagree with but it wasn't a glaring issue for me. the scene with the poison hallucinations, the one in the streets of shu han where inej had to comfort him, and even at the end with the "i will have you without armor" scene were all very well done. the dregs fight was way too soon and not as climactic as it needed to be but i don’t want to talk about that (im fragile)

wylan's characterization was...it was there?? it felt a little off but i can't fully articulate why?? they did a good job with showing his talent and just like value as a demolition man, with the scene where he rescued everyone in shu han and in the end with the bomb saving nikolai and the others. i'm going to use this as an opportunity to talk about wesper because they speedran them so fucking much, and i was lowkey here for it?? they weren't *my* wesper but they were entertaining?? it makes sense to have them get together in the context of the whole show, as a side plot romance to keep it engaging. they also have the least incentive to not be together i guess? like everybody else is going the fuck through it and they have their issues but i guess they have like, less stopping them? i don't love the idea that they hooked up beforehand but i can accept it tbh.

outside of wesper, jesper's characterization was pretty good, i love kit young as him sooo much omg. it might have just been me but i felt like his sarcasm and like little quips with the crows and stuff wasn't as good as it was in s1?? the hallucination scene with his mother made me cry a little even though i feel like his development with being grisha was definitely too early and rushed (as is the theme with this season apparently!) also the way his relationship with wylan happened and their interactions were fairly in character for jesper imo.

nina, no offense, where was her personality?? nina in the books is so out of pocket and iconic and i felt like we got almost none of that. they made her entire character center around matthias which was so inaccurate to who she is. like yes matthias is important to her in the books but it never felt like the sole part of her personality. we deserved more nina and inej interactions bc i love them a lot.

i honestly liked what they did with matthias even though the perks rollins crossover was kind of ???ok anyways. bro was going the fuck through it but every scene with him felt a little redundant like, we got the point. i honestly thought they were going to get him out of hellgate and i was prepared to be salty about it but i was pleasantly surprised that they kept at least one thing book accurate and in line with the set up for six of crows.

as for the plot, honestly the crows being so involved in the ending was a fanfiction crossover fever dream. i don’t even want to talk about it. i don’t have too much to say on the shadow and bone plot because i honestly don’t know those books as well and haven’t read them in over two years. overall i feel like part of the reason i’m so critical is because i know six of crows by heart and those characters are so untouchable to me, it hurts a little to see them. i’m ok with changes to s&b plot because we all know those books are not that good, but six of crows?? if it’s not broken don’t fix it guys. i loved tamar and tolya, genya was great, lowkey i loved malina even thought i like their book ending better (that might be an unpopular opinions idk.) nikolai was kind of meh, he could have been a lottttt more interesting and his personality was lacking. every scene with the darkling in it was boring. maybe that’s why they included the crows so much. did i mention i love genya??? i’ve heard people say zoya was out of character but i don’t even know what in character would be for her so i can’t comment on that. i loved the keftas and the costuming overall, i still don’t like how alina’s summoning looks (i feel like it should be more warm??), we were robbed of i am become a blade

honestly, if they do adapt six of crows i want them to start over from the beginning, ignore the show but use the show cast. but that is not going to happen and they already used so much of the dialogue and scenes from ck . so .

#they definitely just threw in stuff from crooked kingdom to fill out the plot & keep the crows interesting without anything new #but honestly whatever at this point #grishaverse #shadow and bone spoilers #shadow and bone s2 #shadow and bone netflix #shadow and bone #six of crows #crooked kingdom #s&b s2 #s&b season 2 #s&b spoilers

7 notes · View notes

themovieblogonline · 2 months ago

Text

Blog Post: Angela Moore Talks Bakta and FROM Season 3

Alright, FROMily, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the powerhouse that is Angela Moore—a name you’ll be hearing a lot if you’re not already familiar. In FROM Season 3, she plays the no-nonsense bus driver Bakta—a role that fits her like a glove. And let me tell you, Angela’s take on Bakta gives us layers, complexity, and enough sass to keep the town of FROM on its toes. If you thought Bakta was just here for the ride, think again. Angela dropped some gems about how her character evolves in Season 3, and let’s just say, Bakta’s got depth we haven’t fully explored yet. No spoilers, but get ready to see a whole new side of her this season. https://youtu.be/5g3V_yfhjMM A Deep Dive into Bakta's Evolution From Season 3 throws Bakta into the mix, but it's not just about surviving the horrors of the mysterious town. As Angela revealed in our chat, Bakta’s story arc is about adapting and showing another side of her that we didn’t get in Season 2. We saw her as this tough, take-no-BS type when she first rolled up on that bus—but in Season 3? She's about to show us a deeper emotional spectrum. “I believe that we'll just see a different side of Bakta. When she first arrived, she was pretty surly, right? Like, ‘Who are you? Get away from me!’” Angela said, laughing as she recalled Bakta’s no-nonsense attitude. Well, buckle up, FROMily, because her ride isn’t over yet! Angela's Take on FROM's Mystery What really struck me during our conversation was Angela’s sheer excitement for the FROM storyline. “Every time I’m around the cast, I just feel so grateful to play in this crazy world,” she said, calling out the show’s diversity and storytelling. Angela’s love for the show shines through, and she’s not just in it for the paycheck—she’s in it because FROM does something unique with its characters, its tension, and its supernatural elements. “We have Catalina , Harold , Ricky , and so many talented people bringing their A-game. It’s like a twisted, diverse family. And John ? Let’s just say he’s a little twisted too, in the best way possible,” Angela quipped. Behind the Scenes: Creepy Creatures and Bus Rides Angela also shared a hilarious (and slightly terrifying) behind-the-scenes moment. She admitted that while filming in Halifax, she wasn’t quite prepared for the level of horror. “I hadn’t even seen Season 1 until I got there! I remember walking onto the set and seeing this guy dressed as a creature, and I just froze. It was HORRIBLE!” she said, laughing through the memory. Hey, if even the actors are freaked out, you KNOW FROM is doing something right. She went on to describe filming one of Bakta’s more gruesome scenes. “I was ready for action, thinking I’d walk in and see some gnarly special effects—blood and guts everywhere. But nope! The director called ‘Action!’ and there was NOTHING there. I had to imagine the whole thing. Like, how does one react to a shredded corpse?!” What's Next for Bakta? Without giving too much away, Angela hinted that Bakta’s story is far from over. “There’s a lot more to Bakta in Season 3. We’re going to see her adapt, maybe even get a little vulnerable. But at the same time, she’s still Bakta—tough as nails and ready for anything.” And, honestly, we wouldn’t want it any other way. Bakta is the kind of character who you know is going to have some pivotal moments, especially in a town where nothing is what it seems. Final Thoughts: Angela Moore is a gem, both on and off-screen. Her passion for portraying Bakta and her advocacy for BIPOC performers (yep, she’s been doing the work behind the scenes too!) makes her an absolute force to be reckoned with. FROM Season 3 is shaping up to be one heck of a ride, and I, for one, am here for every single twist and turn. If you’re not watching yet, what are you even doing with your life? Stay tuned, FROMily—this is one ride you don’t want to miss. Read the full article

0 notes

denimbex1986 · 4 months ago

Text

'"It’s the light! Always the light!" exclaims a priest to the murderous Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) as they bask in the glory of a Caravaggio painting in Netflix’s new adaption of the Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr. Ripley.

There are a multitude of exquisite facets to cinematographer Robert Elswit’s work on the series, including the formal compositions that embrace the Italian setting’s architecture. But, more than anything else, it’s the light as Elswit harkens back to classic noirs, 1960s Italian cinema and the canvasses of the great masters of chiaroscuro.

Elswit earned an Oscar nomination for his black and white work on Good Night, and Good Luck, which was shot on color film and converted much as Ripley was shot on an Alexa LF and then desaturated to monochrome. He later took home the Oscar for There Will Be Blood, a capper to an amazing career that includes six films for Paul Thomas Anderson, a couple of epic Mission: Impossibles and a resume dotted with the likes of The Town, Michael Clayton and Nightcrawler. But outside of a handful of pilots—most notably The Night Of for Ripley director Steven Zaillian—Elswit has rarely ventured into the world of episodic storytelling.

With his Emmy-nominated work for Ripley currently streaming on Netflix, Elswit spoke to Filmmaker about what finally coaxed him onto the small screen.

Filmmaker: You’ve shot a few pilots over the years, but this is your first full series. What convinced you to spend a year of your life in Italy making Ripley?

Elswit: It was a long shoot, but it was a joy to be there. Steven [Zaillian] is a great guy. I was able to bring my best guys from the States and had just a fantastic Italian crew and a wonderful production designer, David Gropman. It couldn’t have been better, honestly. I had a wonderful apartment in Rome. [My wife and I] had just become foster parents on King Richard to a one-day-old baby boy. When Ripley started up, he was 10 months old and we were given permanent placement. So, we took him with us. He learned to walk on the streets of Rome. So, a big part of Ripley for me was becoming a dad.

Filmmaker: At this point in your career, do you still like to make lookbooks and pull references? There were a lot of shots in Ripley—particularly night scenes—that reminded me of classic 1940s noir.

Elswit: We were looking at Italian films of the 1960s, which was the great era of Antonioni and Fellini and to some extent De Sica, but we weren’t really imitating the pictorial style of those films as much as we were making something up that we’d never seen before. Steven collected still photography and photojournalism from that era in Italy. It was extraordinary and not many people have seen it. One guy in particular, Gianni Berengo Gardin, a fine art still photographer, [inspired us] with his structured formal language that made use of the unique architecture in Italy. Another influence became Caravaggio when Steven added him as a character in the show, because he saw the parallels between Ripley and Caravaggio, this 16th century wild dude who ends up murdering somebody and is chased all the way to Naples. All of that is from Steven. It’s not in the book. [In the series], Steven has Ripley going to see any work he can find of Caravaggio’s. The way we used the spaces and their formal shapes and structure is more along the lines of German Expressionism from the 1920s and 1930s. So, [the aesthetic of the show] was a compendium of a bunch of different things.

Filmmaker: How early did you decide on black and white?

Elswit: Steven said black and white to me at the very beginning. He really wanted to do the kind of exaggerated contrast that exists in the color paintings of Caravaggio. He wanted your eye to be directed by where the light strikes and where it doesn’t, and that’s something you can do in a very dramatic way with black and white. You can create a reality that’s very theatrical and stylized. Steven had a very specific and clear idea of the kind of pictorial style he wanted. He is one of those directors who knows that the lighting has a direct connection to the feelings of an audience. He didn’t want sunlight. I’m sure he’s said this a million times, but he didn’t want the postcard version of Italy, the beautiful travelogue with sunlit water and beautiful colors. He didn’t want any of that. He wanted a noir-ish black and white with wet streets and dark shadows.

Filmmaker: How did you achieve that desired contrast?

Elswit: The way you set it up now is you have a digital monitor on set that’s tuned to accurately reflect what is being captured on the sensor, then you create a LUT. There are some old film stocks I love and at the post production house in Los Angeles, Company 3, I created a black and white LUT that to my eye imitated two stocks. One was 5231, a Kodak stock that was very slow that they don’t make anymore. It had wonderful contrast and very little gray. You could really see the shadows, but it gave you beautiful highlights as well. I added to that some of the characteristics of Ferrania P30, which was the stock that a lot of the classic films in Italy in the 1960s were shot with. It’s now been revived as stills film. So, that LUT was on the monitor and that’s what I lit to. I could always go into LOG and look at the flat image to make sure I wasn’t losing highlights and to where the shadows were falling, because LOG gives you the whole flat image that’s being put on the sensor without any contrast at all. So, you can just push a button and see that.

I had a wonderful DIT in Italy, Marco Coradin, who was just the best. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to time the show at the end, because you never know how long post might go on. The post for the last thing I did with Steven, The Night Of, ended up being a year and a half. So, on Ripley, I looked at dailies pretty carefully when they came in. I’d put them up on the monitor in the DIT tent, and if I wanted to make a change we’d adjust things so that essentially we had what the movie was going to look like. We really timed the show as we went, which is so much simpler to do if you don’t have color—all you’re dealing with is highlight and shadow detail and contrast.

Filmmaker: The series actually originated at Showtime before later being picked up by Netflix. Was the 1.78 aspect ratio something Showtime required?

Elswit: It was. We had to do 1.78 and 4K. We needed to shoot with an ARRI LF just because of all the visual effects. All those railway stations don’t exist anymore, so everything over the top of those frames is post production visual effects. Also, Steven insisted that there be no sun at all when Tom is killing Dickie on the boat, which meant that we had to have a completely controlled environment.

Filmmaker: You shot that at a swimming pool at the effects supervisor’s house?

Elswit: There was a wonderful effects guy who had a nice swimming pool. I think he did underwater photography for some things because the pool had a little viewing port down at the deep end. So, yeah, we were in a big swimming pool with three cameras and three cranes. We also had an underwater head so we could kind of sink it. I put greenscreen on three sides of the pool, then overlaid the top of it with a silk, which diffused the light. We didn’t want the light from the sky to be flat. It wasn’t supposed to be overcast or foggy. The light was going to have shape to it. So, I had to create shape on everybody’s face that was consistent as if we were saying, “If you’re looking straight down the center of the boat, on the port side the sun is up further right.” We were able to do that by having scaffolding all the way around the greenscreen, which I think was 25 feet high, where I could put lights and either bounce or diffuse them to create some sort of soft ambient shape on the actors. The WETA visual effects people did an astonishing job combining all of that and connecting the water, the boat and the sky.

The boat was actually pretty static for that. It turned a little, but most of the motion you see was created the same way as shooting spaceships at ILM [which Elswit did at the outset of his career in the early 1980s]. It’s all transferred motion. The boat [that looks like it’s moving] is static with the camera moving toward it, then we had these underwater little blowers that can make the water look like it has a wake. We spent six days there [for the murder] and probably three or four more getting them out there [to that spot in the water] and then Tom burning the boat and all that stuff. We also did a few pickups later, just tight shots.

Filmmaker: That sequence of Tom trying to figure out how to burn the boat highlights one of the things that is so great about the show, which is the level of detail. The violent acts of the murders themselves are like 15 seconds of runtime, but they’re followed with 30 minutes of aftermath. I want to ask you about a specific detail. In the first episode Tom has this scam where he calls patients of a chiropractor and tries to get them to submit payment directly to him. There’s a cutaway to the chiropractor at work that starts with a wide shot of his shop. Then you cut to an insert of the hem on his pants as it lifts up every time he presses down on a patient. Where does a detail like that come from?

Elswit: It’s absolutely from Steven’s head. He loves inserts. We did a lot of inserts on this. There are these comic moments that happen in Tom’s imagination. They’re not really moments that actually occur. They’re him imagining these things, like the various bank presidents who are talking directly to camera. That’s in Tom’s head. That was Steven’s humorous idea about how to do that. Steven always said he was more interested in what to do after you kill somebody than in killing them. With an impulsive act of murder, that’s it. But what fascinated Steven, and what he really wanted to make sure he captured, was the improv that has to happen afterwards, where all the mistakes are made and Tom just gets lucky. He wanted to see it and feel it through Tom’s eyes. It’s what they call shoe leather in most movies where he’s walking up and down the same set of stairs over and over again, but I think we brought it to life.

Filmmaker: In that first episode, Tom goes to visit Dickie’s father, played by Kenneth Lonergan, at his ship building factory. There’s a version of that scene that could start with them already at the dad’s desk and you wouldn’t lose any information that pushes the story forward. But instead you have these little environmental touches, like shots of the worker with his welding sparks. Do you and Steven shot list or storyboard? How do you go about building those environments?

Elswit: There was always a detailed shot list from Steven, and we would go over it in a specific way, but he’s not one of those directors that gets locked in and says, “I have this preconceived idea and we’re doing it no matter what happens.” He was always open to seeing other things. On Ripley, we had one of the best assistant directors I’ve ever worked with, Peter Thorell. We always knew how many people we had as background and what they would be doing. There was always an attempt to make things authentic whether it was a hotel or the shipyard. So, yeah, we knew going in that we wanted those sparks and all that stuff. We also had two of the finest costumers I’ve ever worked with, Maurizio Millenotti and Giovanni Casalnuovo. I think their work is unheralded genius. They built every costume for every principal in that show as a period costume. They were very, very concerned with texture and tonal structure within shots. There’s shots that really work because of the tonal values of the pants and the shirt in the location we’re shooting in. I think the costume concept for Marge [Dakota Fanning] was extraordinary, because her costumes are so simple and yet they are a character piece. The way she’s dressed says as much about her character as Dickie’s fabulous wardrobe does about him. And Tom’s coveting of all those objects and Dickie’s clothes works so well because of the prop department. I know I’m going on about everybody, but David Gulick is one of the great prop men. The prop walkthrough, which happens before every movie, where we wander through and look at all these things and talk about them, took three days. Three days! We looked at every single thing that any actor touched in that movie—every ledger in every hotel, every piece of writing equipment, every typewriter, every phone, everything. Everything in that movie was assembled and lined up and we went scene by scene through the whole film. As much as Steven loves those elements of detail, he never loses the larger picture of what it all adds up to.

Filmmaker: Whenever I talk to someone who’s shot in black and white, I like to ask about the lighting units they used, because they’re often dusting off things they haven’t employed in a while. Anything you broke out for Ripley that had been on the bench for a while? Any old tungsten units?

Elswit: Well, the old Mole-Richardson 10Ks at [the famed Rome studio] Cinecittà were something I hadn’t seen in a long time. But we still use tungsten lights, though I just did a movie without a single one. Using tungsten lights with Fresnel lenses is a wonderful way to work, but even with the bigger LEDs I can still create a strong shadow that imitates a tungsten Fresnel unit—though it’s not a perfect imitation. On Ripley I wanted strong shadows, big fall off and hard light. It’s not this sort of ambient daylight that we’ve gotten used to in color photography. So, I wouldn’t say that it was particularly about using different units. I just used what I had in a little more focused and direct way. I wasn’t creating soft window light. When I did fake direct sun, which I did in Atrani in Dickie’s villa and a little bit in Tom’s apartment that he rents in Rome, I used HMIs. In Dickie’s I think we had 10Ks coming through windows, which we don’t use that much anymore. In big shots in New York, we even had 20Ks for big backlights. I think a 20K is still a great backlight no matter what.'

1 note · View note

smokeybrandreviews · 11 months ago

Text

Glamour in Pink

It’s been a few weeks and all the Barbie Oscar nomination discourse has kind of died down. I’ve been waiting to chime in on it because I have a completely different take on that whole situation, and I kind of didn’t want to be called a misogynist for it. I don’t think my opinion should be all that inciting but, you know, the internet It’s like a box of cats out there, even more so on this hell site, but I’ve been around for years and want the smoke so here it goes. See, I watch movies. I’ve watched a ton of goddamn movies in my life. Probably several thousand. I mean, you can probably tell that from the fact I have a tertiary blog strictly for reviews. Be it television, film, comics, games, whatever, i have my soapbox. I also watched most of the films in the corresponding categories in which Barbie was “snubbed”. For me, these weren’t snubs. I’m not going to get into how the feminist film wasn’t recognized by the Academy and whatever else because that’s an emotional response. It’s like when people wanted Black Panther to win something. I disagreed then, too, for a lot of the same reason. Plainly put, Barbie, like Black Panther, just wasn’t good enough.

Best Director

Best Director was loaded to the gills, man. I didn’t see The Zone of Interest, but the rest of those films are, in my opinion, were directed much better than what we got in Barbie. I’m not taking anything away from Greta but, just surface level, I can honestly say the guiding hand of Lanthimos, Nolan, and Scorsese, kind of exposed a lot of what Greta was doing with her film. It’s weird to say, but watching Barbie kind of made me realize that Greta is still a little rough around the edges in terms of her craft. Those other names on the list, they have a clear vision as to how to execute the narratives they bring to the screen. Greta has this ability but it didn’t feel as focus in Barbie as it did in, say, Little Women. I don’t know if that’s because this wasn’t an adaption but compared to the others in this category, I see why she was left out. Like, what the f*ck was up with all of the Will Ferrell sh*t, anyway? Why did it take up so much of the film?

Best Actress

Straight up, my gut tells me Margot was robbed. Putting that out there immediately because I have a massive Robbie bias. I think she is an incredible actress and admire the f*ck out of her finding her own way in the industry with her Lucky Chap production company. All that said, objectively, this category is probably tougher than the Best Director one. Again, didn’t see Anatomy of a Fall so I can’t comment on Sandra Huller but every other actress on this list, f*cking killed. Carey Mulligan, for sure did her thing in Maestro and, while I found that film to be kind of boring overall, her performance never disappointed. Annette Benning is a giant in the industry and she threw that weight around in Nyad like it was just second nature to her. Lily Gladstone was absolutely brilliant in Flower Moon. She brought so much depth and emotion to that role, it would have been hard not to include her in this category. Now, for my money, Emma Stone takes this category because her time spent as Bella Baxter was incredible. Id Oppenheimer didn’t exist, Poor Things would be my Film of the Year, and that’s almost exclusively because of Emma f*cking Stone!

I may sound like I’m going in on Margot and Greta but I cannot stress enough how that’s not the case. I absolutely believe Greta is an exceptional director, Ladybird proved that, and my love for Margot is profound. Hell, even after everything just said, I don’t begrudge the fact so many people feel slighted that they got slighted. Like, they JUST missed the cut, in my opinion. If any one of those films slid into next year’s competition. If, say, Poor Things had a January release, Barbie would be right there. It is a really, really, great film and definitely deserves the Best Motion Picture nod, but I don’t think it’s good enough to win. I don’t think it deserves that gold. I think Runner Up or nomination, is just fine for what we have. The competition is just way too strong this year, which is why Margot and Greta didn’t get the nods. It’s not some gran, -Isitc, conspiracy. There is no irony to be had here. Greta didn’t put together a solid enough effort by comparison and Margot got lost in the shuffle of an unusually strong Best Actress class. That’s all. Seriously, watch the other films in their categories and tell me which one doesn’t deserve to be there. You tell me which film gets the boot to let Margot and Robbie in. I bet you’re going to have as hard a time as I did trying to figure that one out.

#The Barbie Movie #Barbie #Mattel #Some ol' bullsh*t

0 notes

smokeybrand · 11 months ago

Text

Glamour in Pink

Best Director

Best Actress

0 notes

jayeray-twst · 4 years ago

Text

How He Shows You Affection: Cater Diamond

Warnings: None all fluff!

He Takes Pictures of You

“Say strawberry!” Cater ordered with a toothy grin, as he snagged you around the waist and pulled you close, pressing your cheeks together with his arm extended out, holding his phone.

Several months of dating meant you were now quick enough on the draw to smile at the camera for the first snap of the shutter and were even quicker to turn your face to the side, pressing an affectionate kiss to your boyfriend’s cheek before he managed to hit the button again.

“Babe!” he whined a playful lilt to his voice that probably would’ve fooled most, but you saw right through it to the faint blush on his cheeks and the warm look in his eyes.

Cater always got a little flustered when you did little things like that to catch him off guard, which was only fair in your opinion considering how much he did it to you. Your boyfriend had enjoyed flustering you, and gone out of his way to tease, and flirt just to see if he could.

“Let me see?” you asked, making grabby hands at his phone. He immediately passed it over without complaint, pulling you into his arms and resting his chin on your shoulder so he could see the screen too as you looked at the photos he’d taken.

The first was pretty cute, with wide beaming smiles on both your faces, but the second one definitely stole the show. As per usual, even when caught off guard Cater managed to take the picture at the perfect moment, just as your lips brushed his cheek. His eyes were wide with surprise and there was the beginnings of a blush on his cheeks.

“Cute,” you cooed, pleased with the way it had come out, “You going to post that on MagiCam?”

“You know me so well,” he teased, giving you an affectionate squeeze around the middle before accepting his phone back, “We really take the best pictures together babe!”

“If you say so,” you told him lightly.

“I do say so!” he informed you, one hand still holding you to him as his clever fingers tapped away at the screen of his phone one handed, “You’re so photogenic it should be against the rules!”

You huffed in affectionate amusement. Honestly you were pretty sure the only reason you came out looking half so good in all the photos Cater took of the two of you was because he had an eye for it. Cater’s ability with a camera was exemplary, enough to put professionals to shame in your own opinion and frankly you were more than a little flattered that his favorite subject seemed to be you.

His timeline on MagiCam was full to the bursting of pictures of you, doing everything and anything under the sun, almost all of them candid or taken with only a split second’s notice and yet somehow you looked good in all of them. Not only that, but all the pictures were tagged with flattering words about how amazing you looked and how blessed he was to have you and to be your boyfriend.

Looking at it never failed to make you feel warm inside. MagiCam was a huge part of Cater’s life, and when it came to his content you were front and center. It was like his entire timeline was a testament, his own unspoken way of showing his devotion to you more eloquent than any words could ever be. After all if a picture was worth a thousand words than Cater had written entire epochs on how much he adored you.

“Alright all uploaded!” he cheered, pulling you from your fond thoughts and twirling you around in his arms with a bright laugh, “Now that, that’s done we should probably go check up on the A-Deuce combo. They’re supposed to be painting the roses, but knowing the two of them…”

You laughed in agreement and let him drag you off to go check on Heartslabyul’s two most troublesome first years, feeling immensely fond of your boyfriend.

Later when you were scrolling through your own social media you weren’t surprised to find the picture of the two of you from earlier beaming smiles at the camera, tagged with mushy cute things like #loveofmylife, #smilebabe, #aren’twecute?. However the picture of you kissing his cheek was missing.

You fully intended to ask him about it the next day, right up until you caught sight of his phone again. The picture was there both in his background and as his lock screen staring you in the face. You honestly couldn’t do anything in the face of that besides melt and give your sweet boyfriend an affectionate kiss, feeling completely and utterly adored.

He Tells You (And Only You)

Cater was the kind of guy who flirted with everyone, so at times it could be hard to take his words seriously. Compliments like beautiful, wonderful, and precious were a dime a dozen, and not limited to just you either. His whole personality seemed to be exuberant, extroverted and friendly, the kind of guy who had friends everywhere because he had no trouble making friends. He felt almost unreal with how perfect he was.

There were times, especially at the beginning of your relationship that it had made you incredibly insecure. Cater was popular, both through MagiCam and just in general, and you had no idea why he’d want to be with you of all people when it seemed like he could have anyone he wanted. In the face of your worries his words almost felt insincere, shallow and hollow, as if he didn’t really mean them because he said them to everyone he met.

However, the longer you were with him the more you realized something incredibly important. Despite the compliments that fell from his lips at the drop of a hat Cater never, ever used the word love. Sure there was an implication of love, as he said things like “I adore this’ or ‘I’m wild about that’. He said ‘I’m captivated’ or ‘I’m infatuated’ or ‘I’m enthralled’ but never ever ‘I’m in love.’

It was like the words were anathema to him, almost as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it at all. It was then you realized, slowly but surely that a lot of the face he showed to the world was a carefully crafted mask. Just as you’d suspected no one could be quite that perfect, happy and friendly all the time.

Cater got frustrated, anxious and annoyed just as anyone else did, he was just much better at hiding it. There was also a pretty vicious side to him, one that could hurl lethal insults wrapped in so many honeyed words that only those who were looking for it or really paying attention to him noticed.

Funnily enough this actually made you relax. It humanized him, and made him seem more relatable rather than the near perfect being he’d seemed before. Once you realized how much he was hiding you carefully did your best be worthy of his trust, so he could have a safe place to rest. After all keeping up a cheerful mask at all times sounded utterly exhausting to you no matter how good he was at it.

Slowly but surely, he’d begun to let his walls down, coming to you when he had a rough day, sitting in silence with you, cuddling with you, enjoying quiet little moments that you once would’ve thought he’d hate. Instead Cater seemed to relish these stolen moments with you, and as you began to truly see each other for who you were rather than the face you both showed the world you finally got to hear it.

Love. A word he admitted he hadn’t quite believed in and so had never bothered to say. A word he felt was trite and meaningless because of how often it was said over every little thing. A word you’d managed to change his mind about, one that was special and intimate and meant only for the two of you.

“I love you,” you murmured to your boyfriend as the two of you lay cuddled together on his bed, curled up and quietly watching movies together on his laptop. It was something you didn’t say nearly as often these days, as you’d slowly adapted to Cater’s way of thinking that saying it about too many things cheapened the meaning in a lot of ways.

“I love you too,” he assured you, equally quiet, his normal exuberance set aside in placed of utmost sincerity, the words so real and rare on his tongue that you had no choice but to believe them.

He’d only ever said them to you, only ever planned to say them to you, a word that was meant for you and you alone, a little piece of his heart with your name stamped clearly in ownership. It was a privilege you savored and treated with the utmost care, it was the very least you could do to prove your own affections for your boyfriend who cared so very much.

He Makes Things For You

“How do I look?” you asked your boyfriend shyly as you emerged from the dressing room.

Normally trying on clothes with Cater was a lot of fun. Even if you didn’t enjoy shopping all that much Cater made it into an experience. He had an extremely good eye for what would look good on someone and what wouldn’t. and put a lot of interesting things together. He was also perceptive enough to know what would make you uncomfortable and what wouldn’t, and work within your comfort zone.

It made him the idea shopping partner, and lots of fun, especially since he was more than happy to try on anything you asked for him as well. Honestly it was a bit unfair just how good Cater looked in pretty much everything. There were a few times you’d purposefully tried to pick silly things and yet, whether it was sheer force of personality or because he was simply that handsome he always seemed to look good. Still it was fun to try, and the two of you always had a good time together, laughing and teasing joyfully, and you almost never left empty handed.

This however was different. Cater had always had an eye for fashion, and had occasionally dabbled in making his own clothing. However, he’d never really taken it all too seriously before, despite the fact that perfectionist Riddle recognized his talent and had let him design the outfits for when they had to dress up for unbirthday parties.

Despite that, it had never occurred to you that Cater might want to try designing something for you. However he’d apparently wanted to do just that, as he’d shyly approached you with the suggestion when you’d complimented some of his work. That in itself had let you know how very important this was to him. Cater was never shy, so the fact that he’d been so hesitant to ask said a lot.

Which was of course why you’d agreed without a moment’s hesitation. Honestly even if he hadn’t been so shy about it you would’ve said yes. Cater knew your style inside and out and you trusted him more than words could say.

Your trust turned out to be well founded, and the outfit he’d made for you was utter perfection. It was done in colors that flattered your skin, eyes and hair, and had a cut that flattered your figure. You weren’t sure you’d ever felt so simultaneously beautiful and comfortable before. You absolutely loved it, you just hoped Cater loved it too.

“You look beautiful,” Cater told you, quick on the mark as ever with a compliment as he hopped up from the couch he’d been waiting on, “But then again you always do.”

You huffed at that, but didn’t protest as he circled around you, holding still so he could view you from all angles.

“Do you like it?” he asked, once he reached your front again, uncharacteristically shy again.

“Cater are you kidding I love it!” you told him fiercely, not willing to let any sort of insecurity stand.

“Pretty sure you’d have to say that even if it was ugly babe,” Cater told you a little wryly.

“I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings,” you conceded, unwilling to lie, especially when you knew how much Cater valued honesty, but also unwilling to back down, “But in this case I’m definitely not exaggerating! Have you seen me?!”

You twirled in front of him arms spread for emphasis, “I look amazing! I feel amazing which, as you’ve told me, is just as if not more important! If you don’t believe me we can march right over to Pomefiore and get Vil. I’m sure you’d believe him!”

“No need for that,” Cater told you with a huff of amusement, his eyes warm and full of affection as he gently tugged you to him, his warm hands clasping your elbows as he peered into your eyes, “You really do like it babe?”

“I really, really do,” you answered him, with all the sincerity you could muster, “So much so I might just have to wear it every day. I’m not sure my other clothes could ever compare.”

“No need to go that far,” he insisted, though the bright look in his eyes belied the words, “I can always make you more.”

“So long as it doesn’t put you out,” you replied, “I’d love to wear your clothes Cater, anywhere anytime.”

Your boyfriend gave you one of his rare soft smiles, tugging you into his arms and just holding you, clearly grateful for what you’d said. You hugged back, quietly scheming to yourself determined to help Cater realize how talented he was. He deserved it, but in the mean time you would simply savor how much he clearly loved and trusted you, letting you be his first real model. You really couldn’t have asked for a better boyfriend than Cater Diamond and you were now even more determined to make sure he knew just how much you adored him in return.

Like this or my writing in general? Feel free to drop by my ask box to make requests! Just make sure to read the rules first! Want to support me or make a commission? Please see my Ko-fi!

#twst cater #cater diamond x reader #cater #cater diamond #cater x reader #cater twst #cater diamond x you #cater diamond fluff #disney twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #fluff #twst wonderland #twst imagines #twst fluff

182 notes · View notes

redxblueihateloveyou · 3 years ago

Note

Hiiii!!! 💫💕🌸🥳

Can I bother with a question... I was (re)watching that zhang qiling edit (not today) - 'cause it's so cool, btw- and I wondered if Reboot Xiaoge’s your favourite one...? And if you're up to answering, what do you think about the other adaptations? Especially (our small bean) xiao yuliang's interpretation of xiaoge?

🤗🌺💐🐰💕

Hey, my precious patootie hehe ILY it always makes me very happy knowing that you rewatch my vids <3

lol dang it, I was kinda hoping to avoid this question, just because I feel like I'd find it hella hard to explain some things, but I'll try my best and hopefully it'll make some sense xD

I'll start from afar bc I wanna try to explain my reasonings, since I don't want to go without arguments into such highly debated question lolz. I talked about this a bit in my previous asks somewhere, but not broadly as to why that one guy hit all the right spots.

So throughout the books Wu Xie always does this wonderful thing, where he very tangibly describes the feeling he gets when Xiaoge is near, I mean like the aura around him. And he always somehow does it so colorful, that this mix of safety, assurance, calmness, composure and some things I can't quite put into one noun, that he brings to him, I think everyone who've read the books can recognize as this almost magical "Xiaoge feeling". It's not just the way he acts in some dangerous situations or smth like that. It's just everything. You either have it or you don't. And here goes my first argument... to me none of them, except for Huang Junjie and Yuliang have it.

I mean it's not even the obvious stuff, it's like the way they move during the action scenes, the way they even stand and hold themselves, the way they touch Wu Xie, the tone of their voices (both of which are like soothing as fuck), little things you'd think wouldn't matter, but when you watch it and all the puzzle pieces are together, you're like... fuck yeah, thats him.

Also not really that weighty of a point, but to me there's always a joy to see that the actor who plays the character not only gets what's he's playing, but also loves it, bc it's always seen on screen. Usually when some asked about the character they play and what they have in common for example they answer with obvious things like if some character is introverted they're like "well I also don't talk very much" or smth like that, you know what I mean. When I was watching interviews of Yuliang and Huang Junjie I was just smiling so much, bc they've said such things that made me go "yeah, Qiling is safe in their hands".

In Reboot case working in such close proximity with the author definitely also played a huge role here. Bc it kinda gets complicated in some aspects since the books are written from Wu Xie's point of view and you can't only base your picture on his perspective, just bc it's coming from a person who after being basically told "you're my whole world" goes "I'm just a person he randomly passes by in his long life" in his thoughts. Not only he's utterly clueless and dumb when it comes to all this, that he wouldn't notice the way Qiling looks at him and other things, its also not that kind of book, that would go "I suddenly caught poker face looking at me like I'm his whole existence" (and I honestly don't want it to be that book lmao). So you have to take into the account here stuff like what author says to get the whole picture, bc if you look at that from the point of Qiling's view for example, this shit takes a whole wild turn. So I really loved that in UN and Reboot ways of showing Qiling's feelings were well thought out and fit the timeline.

Bc it also works both ways, when it comes to other adaptations. Like Qiling is very and I mean ETREMELY hard to win over. We all know that it was a very long process of gaining his trust and even longer for him to fall for Wu Xie to the point of him being his everything. So what I want in those interpretations is for them to get at which point of their relationships what Xiaoge's behavior makes sense. I do not need any fanservice if it ruins the character, I'll just hate it. The thing that their feelings didn't come out of nowhere is what I LOVE about this ship, bc I'm not the kind of person who believes in "we love for nothing" thing and love at first sight thing (only "got hots for each other" at first sight), bc thats bull. Wu Xie became his everything after a long LONG process of getting to know each other. At the beginning tho he was the same stranger to him as everyone else. So what Reboot Qiling feels for Wu Xie is not what UN's Qiling feels for Wu Xie yet and what UN's Qiling feels for Wu Xie is not what Lost Tomb's Qiling feels for Wu Xie (which at that point was nothing). And I feel like not everyone gets the fact that you can totally wreck the character if you make him behave not the way he behaved in that particular time. Like for example, if someone would make a MDZS adaptation where at the very beginning of their relationships LZ treats WWX the way he treated him after the reincarnation just because "who cares, it's still LZ", that would be dumb af, see what I mean. So Xiaoge having a weakness for Wu Xie in part one is automatically not a Xiaoge to me, bc a huge part of his character and the thing NPSS speaks a lot about is just how IMPOSSIBLE it is for someone to catch his attention and how long it took Wu Xie to get there. So let's just say to me UN and Reboot Qilings for the first time didn't feel like some mashup or character summary/parody, they were Qilings the way they are supposed to be in that part of the story, bc it was the only times someone actually bothered to coordinate it.

Now as to why I prefer one to another. Xiaoge has this thing... the way he holds himself with other people, that is sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally suppressing.

Like everyone knows that if you're a passerby, Qiling genuinely doesn't fucking care and would in fact be pretty harsh about it in terms of treating people like they do not deserve their attention. He won't be like "please, don't bother me", he simply ignored them like an empty space. He is also like that with acquaintances who in his opinion do not deserve his respect like that girl who went hysterical, bc she was upset that he was the only one who wasn't drooling on her like all other men on the crew, Chen Wenjin, Wu Xie's uncles and etc. He's not openly disrespectful unless they trigger him in some way (usually by trying to act superior or later on for not treating Wu Xie right), but if they do, he will in fact remind them their place in sometimes a very rude way, at times humiliating them in front of ppl bc he looks younger than them and talking starts.

He's always doing things on his own terms and hates being told what to do. Like he legit scared Chen Wenjin just with a look and the tone of his voice when he said "let go", when she tried to command him on the mission and grabbed him trying to lecture him about what he should or shouldn't do. That's why Wu Erbai didn't even try anything like this and let him do whatever he needed to do and equally lead the mission in Reboot. And why the scene where Wu Xie 'commands' "Xiaoge, come back" and he immediately listens holds another special place in my heart. Bc he NEVER and I mean NEVER allows such things to ANYONE.

So here I came to a point of why despite loving them both dearly, my favorite Xiaoge is Huang Junjie.

I have this dissonance with Yuliang's version when to me in many scenes it felt like he and Wu Xie are the same age. Like if he was Xiaoge, but in his 20s. In his interactions with Chen Wenjin the dynamics was turned upside down, with him being okay with her telling him what to do and just in general the way she behaved with him. Same as like I didn't always quite believe him to be on par with older generation or even Pangzi, it just felt like he was truly younger than them. Some scenes that I do find extremely cute just don't fit book Xiaoge at all, I'm talking about some moments like his face when Wu Xie gave him food, or him pouting and many things he's done, when you were going "uwu he's a baby". He just never gives me this feeling in the books ever, not just bc he's 100 years old, but sad fact here.. bc he's simply unable to behave that way. Like in the books you'll desperately want to shower him with love, but he's just... I can't quite explain, it's very sad.

I guess it's just you know these characters, who are like hundreds years old, but look like they're 18? I think you have to be very careful with how you write those, so you could deliver that. And in UN because of some changed dynamics and scenes I straight up forgot about it, until Wu Xie threw some joke like "he's an old man" in front of a restaurant.

In Reboot Xiaoge could make Wu Erbai stutter with one move, put Yuliang's version in the same scene, I just don't think it would've worked. Like I'm trying to imagine him telling UN's Wu Erbai what to do and having troubles already haha. Same as I don't think he's capable to be genuinely mad at Wu Xie, and HJJ nailed it esp in one of my fav when Wu Xie was laughing at Pangzi's joke about him catching cold. The look he gave him and how ZYL just retreated was priceless xD. And boy could Qiling get angry with him in the books!

Otherwise I didn't have any drastic fall outs there, like with Joseph's Wu Xie and Ah Ning's death, because that was just too much of a difference, but there were still moments where it was once again this the same scene completely different emotion thing. He was more tolerable to ppl in general here, more pliable. And 50% of the time he gave me the cute lost kitten type, which I just cannot connect with the feeling he gave me in the books. His personality is a cat type 100%, but like seriously "cute baby" is the last word combination I would ever apply to book Xiaoge, but with Yuliang's version it's easily applied. So small bean he is indeed. With Joseph and in UN it works incredibly perfect to me, but the way he is in UN is at times too gentle. And there are lots of scenes where Joseph himself looked at him in a way "you're too cute, let me pinch your cheeks" kind of way, or the way he like sat down next to him on the coast, he was a bit babying him at times. I can't imagine book pingxie doing that. It's just a whole different vibe, the way he takes care of him, the way he lets him take care of him... it's...uuuuuuuuu another vibe (see, I'm so good at explaining lmao).

It's also kinda funny to me, bc HJJ who's the smallest and who irl truly a kitten never once gave me that feeling on screen for some reason. The one babied and loved by every crew and old ppl, who was cutely hiding behind ZYL's back on set, who won't sue an ex who almost ruined his career bc of how stupid she is, bc he "didn't want to hurt her", who according to staff can't even step on a fly, whom CMH was petting for several minutes after he had to hit him with a prop brick bc he didn't wanna do it lmao. I was just like.. ok, this is hilarious, bc I in fact didn't expect him to be a small bean, so watching all the bts made me go LOOOOL. Probably ZYL acting like a 3 year old helped him transform and the age difference problem got lost lmao

As for other adaptations. You know I can't watch seriously "Lost Tomb", I think some ppl probably have some nostalgic feeling about it, but I'm sorry, to me it's fucking hilarious. Like I've already said it looks like some type of twilight parody thing or smth. Soft damselle Wu Xie esp killed me, bc 1st when he ever was that, 2nd in the first book he's salty af, I don't even know this dude in this interpretation, I was like who's this. YangYang I know him from other things, I really don't think it's his role. I know the script and everything is bad. I know the costume and hair are horrendously funny, but it's just I was watching him in those action scenes and was like no... just I'm sorry but I'm not feeling it. I simply just don't know what to say about the whole thing seriously, bc I don't even know where to start. 10 episodes of some salad finished with one mutilated scene from book 6 for no reason the fact that characters are weird themselves also I can't quite tell, did they really just meet or they imply smth else lmao.. I'm sorry, but I do not get it.

I've given LT2 another try after finishing all the books and I've dropped it half way through, Cheng Yi wasn't even close to how I pictured Xiaoge in any aspect. He in fact didn't do anything OOC or off the book or anything, I just was like "not my Qiling". Happens sometimes.

Explore with the note you already know how I feel about this lol let's just forget.

P.S. To be fair here also maybe we should take into account the fact that some got luckier than other with "at which point" Xiaoge they're playing. Like for example, "Wrath of the Sea" and "Qingling Tree" books which is LT2 is not exactly you can say much about Qiling there, he trolls them there in the beginning (in a brilliant way that was totally lost in the adaptation) and he is there in "Wrath of Sea", but it's not the part that can make his character shine in any way, there's not much things happening there that would make you fall for him or get to know him; Yuliang grabbed the fattest piece bc it's middle several books, when they're always together and his character shines the most in terms of clues about past, opening up to Wu Xie and Pangzi, and there are many many events where you can get the picture of what kind of man he is; Huang Junjie grabbed my fav piece of utter devotion, where he's already fully and wholeheartedly belongs to Wu Xie, that I'm just weak for. So like... there's also that I guess xD.

#answered #jaecomments #zhang qiling #daomu biji #dmbj #lost tomb reboot #i still feel like i couldn't quite explain stuff lol #its a complicated question xD #do not kill me for my i guess weird opinions haha #huang junjie #xiao yuliang #lost tomb #pingxie

54 notes · View notes

gr-ogu · 4 years ago

Photo

Hello! As requested, here is a tutorial on how I make my gifs. I would like to preface this by saying there are many ways to make gifs, and there’s no right or wrong answer imo. This is just how I personally go about doing so!

I will be using PS CC 2017, but as long as you have the video timeline option, it shouldn’t matter too much; on any version of PS, you should be able to adapt anything I mention here! You will also need some kind of screen recording software. I’ll talk a little more about that under the cut.

To start, you need the source material you will be making the gifs from! I get mine from snahp(.)it (avoiding links so tumblr hopefully doesn’t banish this from the tags lmao) and I always opt for either 1080p or 2160p. Not all laptops will support 2160p as it’s 4K, but either works great! You just want your gifs to be the best quality possible.

Next is where the screen recording comes in. I don’t use the screencapping method to make my gifs (where you use a program to cap a clip and then load those caps into a stack in PS). This isn’t for any particular reason… it’s just how my friends, (who very kindly taught me to gif), had always done it, so it’s now how I do it too. Personally, I find the quality to be just as good as the screencapping method, and have never noticed a difference between the two.

As I have a PC, I use the software built into it for screen-recording. If you go here: theverge(.)com/2020/4/21/21222533/record-screen-pc-windows-laptop-xbox-game-bar-how-to – you can see how to use the XBOX screenrecorder to record from files you have d*wnloaded. This also works on some streaming sites, but I think it depends on what browser you use. Personally, I recommend Firefox, as that seems to bypass a lot of the blocking and ads that occur when trying to do this sort of thing.

For MAC users, I have been told handbrake works well, as it converts MKV files to MP4, which can then be used to make gifs. You only need to convert part of the file to MP4 depending on how much you want to gif, and this also bypasses the screenrecording stage, as you can edit MP4 clips on Quicktime. I am told you can split them into smaller clips by going to edit > trim and it saves the new clip!

I have also used anyvideoconverter for small clips, but I can’t say what it does to the quality of your video, or how big of a file it lets you put in! With the XBOX screenrecorder, it doesn’t matter what type of video files you get, as the recording will save to MP4 anyway.

LOADING YOUR FRAMES

Now, go ahead and record whatever clips you want to gif. Make sure you have the video timeline open, by going to window > timeline. Then, go to file > import > video frames to layers.

Next, select and open your clip from where it has saved (with the XBOX recorder, it saves in video > captures). You should see a little window pop up, where you can move the sliders back and forth to clip your recording to whichever part(s) you specifically want to gif. I recommend trying not to load a lot of frames into photoshop at once, but I would be a hypocrite to say that, since I do it a lot lmao. Just be patient if you do!

Once you have chosen the length, click okay. Never, EVER, I repeat NEVER click the button that says “limit to every __ frames”. This really ruins the flow and quality of your gif—it’s better to have shorter, but smoother gifs, I promise. And with tumblr’s new 10 MB limit, it shouldn’t be a problem anyway!

Then, your frames should open up. What we want to do is make them into a smart object, so we can edit all the layers at the same time. To do this, click the small button in the left-hand corner. ALWAYS click this first. If you don’t, it will only convert the first frame to a smart object and the gif won’t work.

Give it a second to sort itself out, then, on the right-hand side, select all your frames at once using the shift key.

Then, go to filter > convert for smart filters. This might take a minute. Don’t click anything else in case PS gets angry lmao, just leave it for a second and it’ll do its thing. The more frames you have, the longer it takes! Now we have our gif, but it needs to be cropped, sharpened and coloured!

CROPPING

You want to start by selecting the rectangular marquee tool on the left-hand side, then drag it across by clicking and highlighting the area you would like to crop your gif to, like so:

What I tend to do is select everything inside the black lines you sometimes get around your gif (this depends on what file you d*wnload), and also the tiniest bit inside the sides. This is because I’ve found if you crop it right up to the edge, you get a tiny bit of transparency on the sides of your gifs, which I’d rather avoid.

Once you have your desired selection, go to image > crop. Now, the dimensions for tumblr are 540px width, so all your gifs have to be that width. However, the length is up to you. I really like big gifs, so sometimes I even make a full square, or even longer. It’s entirely up to you, and what kind of set you want to make.

For the purposes of this gif, I will stick to what I usually go for, 540px by 350 px. This will mean you’ll have to crop some width off, but that’s okay, since Marisa isn’t central anyway. The cropping is always trial and error for me, as sometimes people move out of the frame within in the gif. The best thing to do is just try it, and then move the slider in the timeline window at the bottom to see if the person stays inside the gif, and if not, adjust accordingly.

Next, go to image > image size:

In this box, if I put the width as 540, the gif is a smaller height than I want, as it keeps to the dimensions of the gif when you load it into PS. That’s okay, just put the height you want instead, and we’ll crop off the excess.

Then click OK. Using the rectangular marquee tool again, we need to remove the excess width. Part of the reason I like this version of PS is that it tells you the width of your selection as you do it, but you can always use the ruler as a guide, and check the size of your image by going to image > image size again.

Again, use image > crop, and your gif should now be the correct size!

You can also use the crop tool in the timeline window to crop the length of your gif:

However, I tend to wait until later on to do this (which will be explained further down!)

SHARPENING

Next you want to go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen.

These are my settings. However, 0.4px is very sharp, too much so, but that’s easily fixed.

Go to filter > blur > Gaussian blur and then set it to 1.0.

Now on the right-hand side, we need to reduce the blur, so double click the little adjustment button, and change the opacity of the blur. I usually go for 20-30%!

Then click OK, and that’s your sharpening done!

COLOURING

I picked this scene on purpose as it’s dark, so good for showing how to colour a gif. I have a base psd which consists of some very basic adjustments, but it mostly exists so I don’t forget what adjustment layers I like to use. I adjust them every time I make a gif, essentially colouring each gif from scratch.

In this case, the psd actually makes it darker. So, what I will do is turn each layer off, and adjust as I go. A lot of people say using lots of adjustment layers ruins the quality of your gif… I have never found this to be true, as long as you are gentle with them. If you whack the brightness right up to the top, it’s going to ruin your gif no matter if you use 1 adjustment layer or 100. I would just say use your common sense, and adjust a little at a time!

I start with a simple black to white gradient map set to soft light, because I think it helps you see depth once you add some brightness to it. I usually do this on about 10%, or more if needed. It’s probably unnecessary, I just like how it looks!

Then, I move onto using curves and levels. This is where things can diverge depending on who you’re colouring. If this person is white, it doesn’t matter too much. If they’re not white, you don’t want to white wash them. My best advice is to play around with it. By adding vibrance and other (usually the red) selective colour settings later, you can ensure you don’t change the person’s skin tone from what it originally was. You can also use layer masks at varying opacities (various shades of grey), on your curves and levels, to remove some brightening so that you’re not changing anyone’s skin colour. Just brighten slowly and check in with yourself honestly about how your gif looks.

Some people don’t like using levels, or curves. It’s completely up to you. I tend to use both because levels are good for bringing depth, even if not brightening (though I like to use them for that as well).

One thing you can do is use the white point of the gif to make PS adjust the curves itself, however I like to drag the sliders myself and see what it looks like. Just make sure it’s not too bright, as we will be using further layers to brighten more, after.

Next is levels. The slider on the left controls the black point, the one in the middle controls the midtones, and the one on the right controls the white points. The black brings depth, the midtones adjust the overall brightness, and the white points produce stronger highlights. Again, you’ll get a feel for how this works as you practice. Just don’t use the white point excessively, especially if your characters are not white.

Then I add vibrance (+20!), because we’ve removed a lot of it when lightening the gif. Next is exposure, which I find brings out the highlight and shadow areas more effectively:

Then colour balance! This helps with scenes that might be a certain colour, i.e. too blue, too green, too red, etc. Moving the sliders in the opposite direction of the colour your gif is will counteract it. The best thing to do when accounting for different colours, is to make a new layer every time you change colour, so that you don’t get confused. I always add a new layer for colour balance and selective colour if I want to change more than one thing. So one for red, one for yellow, one for pink, etc.

A layer of brightness just to make the gif pop, and because the scene is extra dark, I added a very gentle extra curves layer:

SAVING YOUR GIF

Time to save the gif. You can go ahead and file > export > save for web (legacy) now, but then you’ll have to reopen the gif to reset the frame rate from 0.07, to 0.05. Instead of doing that, I use a modified action. The original was made by the very talented @elenafisher! So I do not take credit for that at all. You can find the original here: elenafisher(.)tumblr(.)com/post/190817437374/gif-sharpening-action-2-preview-download and in my resources tag. Please reblog it if you’re going to use this!

To use an action, first make sure you have actions turned on in window > actions. To load in your action, go to the little lines circled, and then load the action from your downloads:

Obviously if you don’t want to sharpen your gifs yourself, you can use the action as it is, and it will give you a beautiful glowing effect. If you’d just like to use it to flatten your gif into frames like I do, make sure to take out all the items I have highlighted:

Until it looks like this!

Make sure you have the layer under the file name highlighted, and then click the play button at the bottom! (If you get a screen saying select all frames cannot be found, don’t worry, just click continue!) You can delete the layer that does that if you want, I just keep it in case I realise I’ve forgotten to do something, because you can click cancel and edit your gif before you flatten it. Of course you can undo the steps to get back to the smart object version of your gif, it just takes longer!

And now your gif is in frames and set to 0.05 already, so you don’t have to change the speed! All you need to do now before saving is change the gif cycle to “forever” in the bottom left-hand corner:

Then to save the gif go to file > export > save for web (legacy). Sometimes, the gif is bigger than the tumblr 10MB limit. You’ll be able to see this in the bottom left-hand corner of the gif save settings. If this is the case, I like to preview the gif, to see whether it would be best to cut frames off of the beginning or the end, or both. When you’ve decided, you can select the frames at the bottom, and in the right-hand side panel, and delete them both using the little bins/trash icons.

I keep checking and deleting frames until I get the gif under 10 MB! Just don’t delete frames from the middle, as then you’ll have the same issue as if you selected “every other frame” when making the gif: it won’t flow!

Lastly, these are my save settings:

So that’s it! That’s how I make all my gifs. Blending I do when the gifs are in the grouped, smart filter stage, whereas text I add on during the framing section above! Really hope this is helpful, please feel free to ask any questions you may have! 💖

#gif tutorial #tutorial*#completeresources #yeahps #chaoticresources #allresources #mikesmom #usergeo #userava #usertix #usersmile #usertom #if you'd like me to cover anything more advanced just shout #i wanted to show how i add text too but tumblr wouldn't let me add any more pics #but people can let me know if that's something you'd want!

515 notes · View notes

katsulia · 4 years ago

Note

Heyyy! Could you do "he offends you" with kuroo, Tsukishima and daichi? Thank uu!

He offends you - part3

featuring : Kuroo, Tsukishima

Atsumu and Kageyama version

a/n : I’m so sorry that I took soooooo long to answer this, but here it is ! Daichi version will come in another part with Oikawa’s one !

Kuroo

The exams were coming up fast and as they approached your stress only increased considerably. The dark circles were even more visible on your face and you could see the tiredness miles away. It was absolutely necessary to ensure good grades for this semester in order to hope to make up for the less honourable grades of the previous semester. The nights were long and at this point you could compete with the Hunchback of Notre-Dame and could easily win because of your slouched position upon your desk.

However, that didn't stop Kuroo from coming to visit you in your room. After more than two years of relationship he had learned to notice everything about you whether it was your way of making noise with your nails on any surface, cutting your fruit always very meticulously or your stubbornness. That's why he knew he had to intervene this weekend after having left you all week to your stubbornness to work in an unhealthy way. So at the end of the afternoon he appeared in your apartment with a bag full of your favorite sweets in his hand. Not surprisingly, he found you in your room, hunched over your desk with a multitude of documents and manuals scattered on it. Standing with his head in the doorway, he couldn't help smiling at your concentrated expression and your rather peculiar posture.

"Hey kitten, how's it going?" he whispered in the middle of your ear after putting the bag on your bed. His arms came around your body even though you didn't seem very responsive to his approaches.

"Hmm ... Tetsu wait, I need to focus on this chapter." You got out of his grip without even looking up from your notebook.

Obviously this was not to the liking of Kuroo who was getting more and more worried about your condition. Beyond the fact that he may have been in need of attention, he considered your stubbornness useless at this stage. The rhythm that you had adapted in the last few days was not at all productive and you deserved to take a break.

"You should take a quick pause chibi-chan" he tried one last time to talk some sense into you. His hand stroking your hair was meant to reassure you, but it only intensified your anxiety and irritation towards him.

"I really need to work on this course and get a good grade." You let out a long sigh at the end of your sentence because this debate with Kuroo was just wasting your time. "You let out a long sigh at the end of your sentence because this debate with Kuroo was just taking up your time.

Kuroo rolled his eyes, you were not even aware that it was counterproductive and you were too narrow-minded for him. "But what you're doing here is useless, you have to stagger your workload, otherwise your brain won't memorize anything and you know it. But once again you prefer to be stubborn when it harms you, that's not the way to get a good grade. »

He was certainly telling the truth and probably didn't mean to be rude, but that didn't stop his words from being a little too raw. Deep down you knew that he only wanted what was good for you, but at that moment you took it as a personal attack, especially since the pressure you were putting on yourself would soon make you explode. Having your boyfriend question your way of working was the last thing you needed. Subconsciously you clenched your fist around the pen you were holding and took a deep breath with your eyes closed to try to calm yourself down. But soon tears began to form and flow down your cheeks. Both on edge and totally vulnerable you didn't want to let Kuroo see you like this.

"Ok, I get it Tetsuro, but I remind you that not all of us are geniuses like you and some of us need to work. Which I'm trying to do, I'm sorry that I don't belong to the same world as you." Your tone was cold and dry which was rare for you. "Your tone was cold and dry which was rare for you. But it's true that the fact that Kuroo was pretty good academically didn't help the situation and you almost felt humiliated like a child being scolded by an adult. You would have liked to be like Kuroo and understand everything at first hand without having to spend hours in your lessons hoping for a decent grade, but this was not the case.

Kuroo, on the other hand, was petrified and didn't expect this at all. It had nothing to do with his abilities? He never thought he had offended you or even looked down on you. It's true that sometimes he liked to tease you about your dubious knowledge in chemistry but it never went any further. He felt extremely bad because he only made you feel worse when his goal was the opposite. But it wasn't a time for laments and regrets right now, you were the one who needed help. He turned your chair and lowered himself to your level to talk to you straight in the eyes.

"Kitten, I'm really sorry you feel that way. First of all, I'm not here to blame you or lecture you, but I know how hard you've worked and how you forgot to take care of yourself, so I wanted you to take a break. I assure you that it will do you good and that you will be ready to go back to work in better conditions. And I know this because I know you are determined and stubborn in the positive ways but sometimes you don't even pay attention to yourself anymore." His thumbs caressed your cheeks and dried your tears, and miraculously the feeling of his fingers on your skin instantly calmed you down. It was hard to look him straight in the eye, but it was clear that his gaze was only holding love for you. « And secondly, I'm not a genius. I'm just a nerd who spends all his time making chemical jokes, please don't ever devalue yourself over that again, okay?" Automatically you let a smile appear on your face, he was right he was a nerd first and foremost. Kuroo then smiled, happy to see you feeling better already. He dared to place a kiss on your forehead and his heart warmed up when he felt your hands clinging to his shirt.

"Come on, now we're watching Emily in Paris, and I've got your favorite snacks. And then I promise I'll help you study." You didn't even have time to say anything that Kuroo was already lifting you up on the way to your bed. And getting under the comforter cuddled to Kuroo was certainly not something you were going to say no to.

Tsukishima

Often after class you would stay in the library for a while and work on while Tsukishima finished training with the volleyball team. But today it wasn't in your plans, at least not since lunch.

You were discussing with Kiyoko and Yaichi about the progress of the semester and the growing complexity of homework. The girls were interested in your grades and how you were managing everything as if it was easy.

"If getting good grades means getting the same results as Kageyama and Hinata, then yes, you can ask Y/N for advice," you almost jolted at the voice of your boyfriend that was just behind you. Kageyama who was standing aside looked at him with daggers in his eyes yet Tsukishima remained totally indifferent. It was the girls who burst out laughing at this scene knowing full well that he was trying to prick the two boys who undoubtedly excelled on a volleyball court but much less when it came to bringing home good grades. Soon you joined them in your turn, as you could not hold your breath in front of a smoking Kageyama.

But even if you laughed at the core you took Tsukishima's remark very badly. You were used to your boyfriend's rather harsh words and knew that most of his coldness was deceptive, although this time you couldn't help being struck by his words. You felt humiliated worse than when you were in public. Did he really see you like that, a little silly around the edges? You liked to think that he didn't, after all he wasn't the kind of person to bother with people who didn't deserve his time. And that's not true, you were far from having castrophic results, and anyway, even that wouldn't change the fact that your intelligence was certainly not defined by your grades. Yet you were just thinking about it because you were rather proud of the results you were getting after the efforts you were making, and Tsukishima more than anyone else knew this because he himself was a witness to the work you were putting in. Until now you had always believed that he was proud of you even though he didn't show it so much because it wasn't in his nature, but right now you strongly doubted it.

That's why you didn't want to go home with him and have to endure any more nasty remarks from him. All the way home you just replayed what he had said and kept repeating his words over and over again. You know you shouldn't give it too much importance, but it was impossible to ignore his cold voice in your head. Your spirits had taken a hit and you just wanted to get into your comforter and move on. But suddenly your cell phone lit up with a new message from Tsukishima.

You went home early?

Your thumbs stayed up above your screen not knowing if you should answer or not. Was he surprised not to see you at the gym doors? Honestly, what did he expect? You hadn't even exchanged a word after lunch.

Yes

Fast and efficient. Even he would have answered like that. The message was simple and didn't say anything special.

Okay. Why?

I wanted to study so I wouldn't have the same grades as Kageyama and Hinata.

The second you sent the message you were already regretting it. Surely he was going to know that you were referring to the lunchtime and he was going to bother you even more with it. You would have been better off ignoring it and finding some other excuse he's never going to let you go with it again.

Read. No answer? Maybe it was better than one of his terrible comebacks that you absolutely didn't need right now. But yet it still affected you a little bit more, he really doesn't care, does he? Didn't he realize that sometimes it was too much and that a relationship shouldn't be like that? All these questions were running through your head while you were lying there in bed staring at the ceiling. You don't know how long you were in that position before a big blonde head barged into your room.

"Kei? What are you doing here? "Your face reflected your surprise and you immediately straightened up to see your boyfriend coming closer and closer to you.

"Your brother let me in and I knocked on the door but you didn't hear me." he stopped a few feet from your bed and stood staring at you. His face seemed neutral and unemotional, which wasn't really surprising.

"Uh ... Yes ... But that still doesn't explain why you're here? "You were stumbling over your words, which conveyed your anxiety and incomprehension about his unexpected presence.

"I spent the end of the day surrounded by idiots like Kageyama and Hinata. And I was hoping after that to go home with my girlfriend to recharge my batteries and finally be with someone who doesn't give me a headache. Except that today I'm the one who hurt her head. "Without even wanting to, your eyes softened and you already wanted to take him in your arms. But your brain was still resisting and thinking about what he had said earlier.

"Yet you thought I was on the same footing as your two teammates. "With your arms folded, you stared at Tsukishima, who couldn't help but sigh at your pout.

"But you know that if you were anything like them I would never hang out with you. I wouldn't want you to be my girlfriend. "You rolled your eyes, there was nothing romantic about it. But when he sat on your bed and intertwined your fingers you already had a slight smile on your face. Seeing that you weren't rejecting him, he moved closer to you and placed his head on your shoulder. "Sorry," he whispered softly. And if that wasn't enough for some of us it was more than enough for you, especially since you already knew that tomorrow he would take you to your favorite bubble tea and that it would last all week.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu writing #haikyuu x you #haikyuu scenarios #kuroo tetsuro imagine #kuroo imagine #kuroo x reader #kuroo x you #kuroo scenarios #kuroo tetsuro x reader #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x you #tsukishima scenarios #tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima kei imagine

433 notes · View notes